Wednesday, 31 August 2016

I've begun to convert the second batch of Goblins mutants (do you remember the first half?), but I'm trying a totally new approach. I was going nuts with so many foot guys, needed to set apart from the infantry and make some mounted units, as I was planning.

Cars a la Mad Max? Living creatures? I've finally taken this latter path. The choice was much easier as soon as my attention was brought towards the World of Twilight minis. Come on, have a look. Ain't them gorgeous?

So this is how it's going to work, you know. Dinosaur riding wasteland mutants. Deal with it.

I thought I had to start this part of the project thinking big. So my first creature was the big Sauropod like monster, the Dompaku. Being a wasteland survivor, I soon envisioned the beast as a wired, augmented creature, having taken the worst part of the stuff a big beast like this one can see on the contaminated ashes of the harsh outworld.

I mean this. Poor guy

Cyborg beast. Getting better and better!

The purpose of this huge buddy is mainly carrying out the muties' belongings, I wasn't designing an Ork Mammoth Squig. These muties have to show their relatively low-tech level, they are a nomadic sort of tribe, not an army of Space Marines or an Ork Clan. So their rides are scout oriented or, in this case, designed to carry baggage, not war-torn battle leviathans. But anyway, they need some firepower for self protection. This was my chance to put that huge jezzail from the Skitarii box to a good use. Who would be a good gunner for this weapon? I found that the tiniest of them all was the best choice. The absurd contrast between the small guy and the absurdly large arquebus worked to my advantage.

Just look at his self-sufficiency, badass face. He's the Clint Eastwood of the mutants

I built the basket in the easiest way possible, a simple piece of card:

They both will look much better in a minute, trust me

The more or less final look of this will be like this:

Not 100% final, but you can see where this is going to

I'll add some more props but this is it more or less

So this is my take on these, some screwed people riding crippled beasts. Well, not that Peter Jackson over the top screwed standards, but something in that way, you know.

This is not the only riding beast these mutants are going to have, I'm also using these others, from the World of Twilight ranges too:

Still some work to do!

With these I think I have this flank of the project covered. A few critters to make the muties cool, I hope it will work.

While I keep on greenstuffing all of them, I've begun to spill some paint on the foot guys, so hopefully you'll see them soon!

Thursday, 25 August 2016

I've been thinking lately, and I've come to a resolution. I need to place some ads on the blog.

...

More exactly on the buildings of my board :D

When I posted this pic some weeks ago it was so obvious:

Fifty shades of grey

This city looks too dull and dark. You could argue there's nothing wrong with that given that, even in a RT setting, all the WH40K environment is supposed to look gritty and gloomy. Yes, I'm OK with that and it's an essential part of the ambientation. But that doesn't mean I have to play on a boring board! Part of this project is bringing a city to life, not having just a generic board with generic obstacles. Visually I need this board to have some more colour, and background wise I need it to look like a real city (or at least as a plausible one; I pretty much prefer that adjective). Dark, anguishing, oppressive, yes whatever you want. But part of modern life in any urban environment is advertising. That works for sci-fi too.

I then rescued a couple of pieces I had forgotten. When I got my LaserCutcard buildings, they both had huge billboards, but I never placed them, as I didn't know what to do exactly. Now it was time for it. I gathered a few card tokens. All of them actual labels from clothing (the wife got kinda suspicious when I volunteered to take all those card pieces apart for her...). They are rigid enough and some even have nice shapes. I then painted over them and got this:

Suber art unleashed

Well, I didn't need them to look nice or realistic. They didn't have to accomodate to our current vision of advertising nor even look visually pleasant. They serve a purpose, which is giving the impression of actual ads in a sci-fi context.You may notice a Blue Sun sign and other Mandarin inscriptions. If I ever dare to begin my Firefly/Serenity project, I wanna get sure I have some proper settings ;)

OK, so now they need some weathering. That's the dirty Warhammer touch. The first big billboard is one of the LaserCutCard ones. I wrote Ludi (Games in Latin Gothic, for a correct 40K ambientation) on one side and the same in Mandarin (according to Google Translator) on the other. If any Chinese speaker ever reads me, please correct my mistakes!

Ain't a rusty, dirty sign a perfect invitation for games and fun?

I'm not even trying to pronounce that

I really didn't know what to advertise on the other big billboard. I thought of a giant Arbites sign and something in the "we are watching" mood; but I thought it would be preposterous being the size this sign is. I went for something more universal...

Adeptus Mechanicus approved. It also works fine for any post-apoc setting

For all the rest I used pieces of card, as told before. No serious planning, just the first thing that came to mind for each one:

Oppidum. Obviously a construction company

I've used the white/orange scheme before, so I thought it would be OK relating it to some port company

Absolute retro looking. No idea of what I'm advertising, but seems to work here

Kind of an late 80's/early 90's look. Works for me

The label was already 'B' shaped. If it's good enough for real stuff, it's good enough for me

My concession to Firefly

All this large space just for this. Less is more

Oh, come on! This is totally justified and needed

They needed somewhere to stand. Cheap & easy solutions, as always. For example:

Others were made of wood pieces and rubbish stuff

So the final result was like this:

Casual bystander for scale

They all look like reliable companies and products

Not only I can use them for my urban setting, but for any post apoc wasteland fallen into oblivion

They were supposed to encourage customers. Yikes

Oops! I didn' t take a solo pic of the one below

Sorry, yesterday I had no time to deploy my whole board and buildings again for a proper shot. What I did is just taking a pic of some buildings so you can have an idea:

When on a complete board these are supposed to look better

Of course this is but an approach, I'd like to make some more stuff in this fashion. I'm thinking of signs hanging on the walls. They are much more usual to see and will also add visual impact.

From Ghost in the Shell. You get an idea of what I envision in my mind

Thursday, 18 August 2016

Now that the Punkapocalyptic KS has ended and the dust is just settling down, I'm bringing another of their minis, 'Imperatrix Rabiosa'. Ahem.

There are some other choices out there (Hasslefree, for example), but I got this one thanks to a friend and I'm so pleased! Resin cast, the sculpt is as detailed and sweet as usual. The tribute is so obvious that I didn't even try to hide it; here's my try:

You can see I miserably failed in replicating the facial paint. That will need to be redone. But for the moment I'm leaving her this way.

I think she needs (or my whole Punkapocalyptic bunch need) some more charming stuff. Yes, I mean machines on wheels. The most obvious being those sold on the Punkapocalyptic web, I'm however hypnotized by the work of those people who build their own. The latest example I can recall is this beauty (part 1 & part 2) by magnificent Stuart Bannister from The Lost and the Very Damned (go see the stuff this man does!!). For the moment this kind of work is absolutely out of my league, but I recently made a discovery I think I can use for this purpose:

1/43 Diecast French Firemen truck. Not even 10€. Had to do it, you understand me

I thought I could use it for my Zombicide/zombiewhatever games, but these days I can only think of the possibilities this monster offers...

I don't think I'm going for it in the next weeks, as I'm still buried under pending stuff, but I will definitely have to do something about it...

Friday, 12 August 2016

Pushing again on the Imperial Assault front. After so many Imperial stuff, I think it was time for the Rebels at last!

The minis are sweet, nicely designed and sculpted. In fact I decided not to put any additional work on them. I have sometimes gone to the point of not only converting generic, identical troopers, so I don't have two minis the same, but even to the paroxysm of retouching singular characters, so I get unique minis. Though I got the temptation, I thought I wouldn't really improve them or get any more interesting poses, they were more than good enough. So that makes it easier, just had to spill some paint on them.

They all are characters specifically created for the game, let me introduce them:

Gideon Argus, Valiant Commander. That's what the character sheet says

Totally in the aesthetics of the original movies. The coat, I believe, is what gives him the touch.

In my opinion, this mini gets away from the 70's aesthetics I talked about before with the first mini. It moves towards a more modern-like vibe.

Diala Passil. Haunted Exile. Vader's still trying to contact her though Facebook

Quite dynamic. I reposed her waist a little to reenforce that feeling.

Fenn Signis. The Veteran. That's it, the veteran

When painting the mini I couldn't stop thinking that the only real distinctive element in the mini is the helmet. I mean... If one was prone to, let's say, build a Rebel army, would only need modern troopers (Empress? Eureka? Hasslefree?) and little greenstuff work on the helmet. Ahem...

The other day, FourEyedMonster (seriously, why aren't you following his blog?) asked about the scale of the minis. Well, I've taken this pic:

I raised the minis to level them up with the slotta bases

So in the 28-30 mm. range. Hardly compatible with the old West End minis, but manageable with the bendy plastic Wizards of the Coast ones. The OOP KnightModels range was sweet, but good luck finding reasonable prices nowadays.

I have a little bit of each, so I think I can also take some comparison shots. But that's it for today. More stuff coming soon.

Thursday, 4 August 2016

Well, this is finally coming to an end :) After some deliberation, the monorail is finished.

You'll see that the paintjob is quite rough this time. I really wanted to get this ready and move along to more pending projects. This is going to be a piece of scenery (though quite a significant one!), so won't get as much attention as the characters. So the gritty appearance doesn't bother me this time.

I finally used the servitor head for the driver:

Anyway, the coach will need some further touches

Cutted some blisters for the windows and that was pretty much all it needed!

Ready to depart

Ready for some oldschool train robbery

Next thing to think about was the railway and the pillars. Easy thing, just spray all over and that's all!! I added some posters and signs to add some colour.

Urban jungle

Really shouldn't do this on the sill...

Well! Time to see how this fits on the board!!

Enough for two railways and I still have three pillars left. Damn, this is big

I'll add some more stuff so you get an idea of the real size of this (the board is 120x120 cm, 4x4').

OK, it's official. I need a bigger board.

If I deploy all my buildings and minis, won't have a game. I'll have a protest

Well, at least it gives the impression of an overcrowded hive, I guess that was the purpose!

Jokes apart, I'm happy with the whole monorail structure, it gives another dimension to the board, the 3D approach is usually underrepresented, as is the interaction with moving objects. I think this can be a funny element for quite a number of games!